Weaver thriving under the spotlight

Kylie Northover

JACKI Weaver has long been an integral part of the Australian showbusiness landscape, but she's fast becoming a well-respected international player.

Since her acclaimed role as Smurf, the matriarch of a Melbourne crime family in the 2010 drama Animal Kingdom, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, Weaver's Hollywood profile has steadily grown.

At Sunday's Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts' International Awards ceremony in California, the 65-year-old kept company with none other than legendary actor Robert De Niro, her co-star in her latest Hollywood project, Silver Linings Playbook.

Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts awards. Photo: Getty Images

The poignant film is a comedy about a depressed teacher (Bradley Cooper) released from a psychiatric hospital into the care of his parents, played by De Niro and Weaver, both of whom have been nominated for best supporting actor Oscars.

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Silver Linings Playbook is the first film in 31 years to receive Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories, with Cooper up for best actor and female lead Jennifer Lawrence for best actress alongside Weaver and De Niro.

The film was the big winner at Sunday's AACTA ceremony, Australia's version of the Oscars, winning best film, best direction, best lead actress for Lawrence as well as two ''discretionary'' awards (determined by the Australian Film Institute and AACTA board of governors) to De Niro as best supporting actor and Weaver as best supporting actress.

Accepting his award, De Niro, standing next to Weaver, called the Australian acting community ''really terrific''.

''There's so many actors in Australia I really have respect for,'' he said.

The David O. Russell-directed film is tipped to take out best picture at February's Academy Awards and is a certainty to further increase Weaver's Hollywood currency.

Weaver is working on a Tom Hanks-produced feature, Parkland, set at the Parkland Hospital in Dallas on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, starring alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Paul Giamatti.

She also has a role in the comedy Wild Oats, in which she co-stars with Alan Arkin, and in the horror film Haunt, slated for release this year.